Ramiro Fróilaz
Ramiro was the eldest son of Fruela Díaz and Estefanía Sánchez of the Navarrese royal house, daughter of Sancho Garcés, Lord of Uncastillo.
She was buried in the church of San Isidoro de León, where her epitaph names her husband and describes her as "descended from the kings of France".
[3] In the same charter, he gave them the lands he had confiscated from his niece, Estefanía Díaz, who had married without his consent,[4] also mentioning the arras that he had given his other two wives, Sancha and Elo.
On the occasion of her marriage, the king and Ramiro gave Ponce their respective halves of the village of Carrizo de la Ribera, where Estefanía later erected a monastery (1176).
Ramiro's third wife was Elo (Eilo) Álvarez, daughter of Álvar Fáñez and Mayor Pérez and widow of Rodrigo Fernández de Castro.
[8] On 1 June 1153 Ramiro and his wife Elo terminated a dispute with his sister, María Fróilaz, and her husband, Pedro Alfonso, over the water source at a certain Villanueva.
[11] The earliest reference to Ramiro is in a now lost charter recording the foundation of the monastery of Santa María de Arbas del Puerto.
A résumé of the charter was kept in the Archivo Histórico Nacional during the directorship of Juan Menéndez Pidal, whose brother, the historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal, concluded from it that "the same count and countess Fruela Díaz and Estefanía, with their children Ramiro, Diego, Constanza and María, founded the monastery of Arbas, in the gate of Pajares [now Payares], on 15 March 1116.
[14] Between 29 May 1132 and 18 September 1133 Ramiro served as alférez of the royal armies, a post commonly reserved for the scions of noble houses.
"[16] Not long after the death of his father (1119), who had guarded the mountainous passes between the regions of León and Galicia, Queen Urraca appointed Ramiro castellan of Ulver in the Bierzo.
[17] At the same time Ramiro received from the crown the tenencia of La Cabrera, sometime before 6 March 1122/6, when he is first recorded as tenente there, although he had appointed one Menendeo Peláez as his merino.
[22] Later Alfonso VII raised Ramiro to the rank of count, a title he first carried in a charter for the Diocese of Sigüenza dated 14 September 1138.
Ramiro, with some leading men of Valdeorras, both clergy and laity, arbitrating the dispute until the monks agreed to pay 160 solidi to Mayor in return for her renunciation of any rights to the estate.
[41] Among the tenencias which Ramiro governed later in his career (the last decade of the reign of Alfonso VII and the first of Ferdinand II) are found Argüello,[42] Boñar,[43] Caldelas,[44] Casayo,[45] Gordón,[46] Villafranca,[47] and Villarmildo.
[48] Jerónimo Zurita places Ramiro at the side of Alfonso VII in Zaragoza in 1134 during the campaign of harassment against García Ramírez of Navarre.
Briefly in 1147 Ramiro was stripped of the Bierzo, which was given to Sancha Raimúndez, the king's sister, but he was soon restored to it and continued to rule it until at least June 1169, probably until his death some short time later.
[60] In the seventeenth century, historian José Pellicer de Ossau y Tovar said of "Ramiro Frolaz" that "he was one of the greatest grandees Spain had, and his name endures in the histories from the year 1120 down to 1168.
